Want to be Free
by CUtopia
Summary: Ariana's instability was her curse and the Dumbledore house her prison - The Lady of Shalott


**Entry for "Muggle Studies" at "Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry (Challenges and Assignments)"**

This assignment, we'll look at a popular Muggle book; specifically, a book called _Divergent _by Veronica Roth. I'm sure many of the Muggle-born students here will have read it, but it's not required to do the assignment. Please pick** one** of the six options below and write about it. Minimum word count is 800.

**Factionless** - write about a person who does not belong

**Entry for the "Muggle Art Club" at "Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry (Challenges and Assignments)"**

Fine Art – The Lady of Shalott

I also took inspiration from the lyrics (well, it is the poem) of the song "Lady of Shalott" by Loreena McKennitt, a great artist, I highly recommend to listen to that lovely song :)

I hope you like it, leave me your opinion :)

* * *

><p>Ariana Dumbledore always felt like the Dumbledore's house in Godrics Hollow was a cursed tower in which she was kept imprisoned.<p>

When she had been younger she could not understand why her mother Kendra would not let her go outside into the garden, even if she said that she would play in silence, deeply afraid that she could be discovered by muggles.

The loneliness and her sometimes uncontrollable emotions were her curse and the house was her golden prison. She had everything she could possibly want, but nothing she really needed to make her feel like her life was a fulfilling one.

Ariana could feel the need to discover the world outside the high hedges and brick walls of the house burning inside of her from time to time, especially in summer, when the days were beautifully bright and warm.

She barely had the opportunity to have a glimpse at the world outside the house – sometimes, when Albus and Aberforth were occupied, she would climb up to the attic and look out of the small, dusty window directed to the street.

But it did not feel real enough.

Her view seemed to be distorted, as if the window was a mirror, showing a reflection but not the real image. The street seemed to be from another world with the people walking their ways, talking with neighbours, meeting each other to play chess or discuss, the carriages pulled by horses, the children playing together with wooden hoops.

And yet only a few metres separated her from these people who did not know about her existence at all.

This was also the way she first saw him.

Back then she had had no idea who he was.

All she saw was this tall, handsome young man with blonde locks walking up the path that led through their front yard towards the entrance door.

There was something about him, something she could not identify, something that felt like a power floating around in the air that surrounded him and Ariana wanted to know more about him.

Later this day, when she went downstairs because she could not hold her curiosity back, she learned that his name was Gellert Grindelwald, and that he was a new friend of Albus.

When his blue eyes shot a glance at her a foreign warmth had spread in her body, making her cheeks glow, but it was as if he looked through her, like all the people on the street who looked up to the house when she sat by the attic window and did not see her at all.

This did not change over the summer in which Gellert would spend a lot of time in their house, talking to her from time to time when Albus was not back from private business yet, but there still seemed to be a great distance between there and Ariana felt like all he saw was her unstable self about which Albus had surely told him. He did not see her as the girl she was, all he saw was the cage in which she was trapped: Her unpredictable powers that were a danger for herself and others.

All she wanted was that he would be able to see behind this façade, to see her most deepest thoughts and wishes.

Everything she had ever noticed restraining her, holding her back, had summed up over the time and now all she wanted was to break free. She wanted to walk out of this house, she wanted to feel the sun on her skin, the street's cobblestones under her feet, hear the people greet her, smell the fresh bread from the bakery and taste the apples the old farmer was selling.

But she kept her desire under covers, feeling like no one would understand.

Until that fateful day she heard loud voices from the living room and she followed them, wanting to listen to them.

Talking about how they could not take her with them, how she would set them back.

It made her angry that they still did not see her and she was also scared as noise rose as her brothers and Gellert started to duel.

She wanted to stop them, she wanted to tell them that she was not a setback, that she wanted to discover the world, she wanted to go with them!

But when she ran into the room, she could not control herself any more. The situation was so overwhelming and confusing and all she did was scream, before a green light hit her in the chest.

At least she was free now.


End file.
